Dear Mosquito. I hate you.

I figured out yet another new thing about my apartment yesterday.  The door to the terrace tilts in so you can open it sort of like a window without having the whole door open.  I was so proud of myself for figuring this out, I decided to leave the window/door open at night.  "Fresh air while I sleep," I thought!  I went to bed in my new sheets feeling very smug and proud of myself, relishing in the fresh air.  Apparently a mosquito sensed my smugness and came in to slap it out of me.  Or rather, to suck my blood out of me.  I woke up at 6, with the mosquito eating my wrist.  And then I noticed my face was also super itchy.  The stupid bug managed to bite me under my right eye, which is now all swollen and puffy, since I react badly to bug bites.

I realized last night that I'm putting more and more of the city together, figuring out places to go and how to get to and from them.  There's still a lot I need to explore, but I'm pretty happy with what I do know now.

Last night we went out for another post-doc's birthday.  It was a lot of fun.  When I left my apartment, I noticed it was sunny but sprinkling.  As I walked, it continued to sprinkle here and there.  Finally, I met up with my friends and we noticed that there was a bit of lightning and thunder.  While we were waiting for a couple of other people, the sky completely opened up in a torrential downpour.  We scurried into a mall to wait out the rain.  After two or three minutes, it stopped and the sky cleared up again.  We were actually able to eat and drink outside.  But.  I learned my San Sebastián lesson to always have an umbrella with you!  We met up after a couple of hours with our English teacher friends - two guys from England, and a few guys and girls from Ireland.  It's interesting because I thought I'd left the ESL world behind in Chicago! It's also a really good opportunity to practice Spanish with other people who mess up all the time too.

I'm crossing my fingers that my cookbook is going to arrive today, just in time for a big shopping trip tomorrow.  If it doesn't, I'll probably just grab things for a couple of days and do a bigger shop next week!